Public School Quotes

• Whenever people talk glibly of a need to achieve educational "excellence," I think of what an improvement it would be if our public schools could just achieve mediocrity.

  Thomas Sowell

  Educational, School, Thinking

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• Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength of the nation.

  John F. Kennedy

  Education, Dream, Teacher

  Proclamation 3422 at the American Education Week, www.presidency.ucsb.edu. July 25, 1961.

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• The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Education, Learning, Liberty

  The American Mercury Magazine, April 24, 1924.

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• Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.

  Henry Fielding

  Education, Learning, School

  'Joseph Andrews' (1742) bk. 3, ch. 5

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• Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control.

  Hugh Jackman

  Motivation, Liberty, Libertarian

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• Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either occasion.

  Mark Twain

  Summer, Education, Children

  Mark Twain (2016). “The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain”, p.46, Chartwell

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• Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  School, Forever, Political

  Speech to the Society of the Army of Tennessee, archive.org. 1875.

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• Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Education, Teacher, Teaching

  "Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters".

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• Our public schools began as ministries of the church; now it is time to return them to the Lord.

  Jay Sekulow

  School, Church, Ministry

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• That's the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.

  Evelyn Waugh

  School, May, Kick Ass

  Evelyn Waugh (2012). “Decline and Fall”, p.62, Penguin UK

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• Anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums who find prison so soul-destroying.

  Evelyn Waugh

  Home, School, Gay

  Decline and Fall (1928) pt. 3, ch. 4

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• I do not believe any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Atheist, Believe, School

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• If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Education, Children, School

  Lynn Sherr, Susan B. Anthony (1995). “Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words”, Crown

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• No greater nor more affectionate honor can be conferred on an American than to have a public school named after him.

  Herbert Hoover

  Education, School, Aggravation

  Herbert Hoover (1938). “Addresses upon the American road”, C. Scribner's sons

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• It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.

  Albert Shanker

  Education, School, Innovation

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• We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Learning, School

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt McLaughlin (2010). “The Laws of Nature: Excerpts from the Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.34, North Atlantic Books

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• The public school system is not about educating black children. Never has been. Inner-city schools are about social control. Period. They’re operated as holding pens—miniature jails, really. It’s only when black children start breaking out of their pens and bothering white people that society even pays any attention to the issue of whether these children are being educated.

  Barack Obama

  Children, School, Cities

  Barack Obama (2007). “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance”, p.258, Broadway Books

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• We all know that great leaders can create great successes...success for the Chicago public education fund is to bring great leaders into Chicago's public schools.

  Kenneth C. Griffin

  School, Leader, Chicago

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• Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least a moderate education...appears to be an object of vital importance...

  Abraham Lincoln

  Education, Teacher, Teaching

  Abraham Lincoln's Address Delivered in Candidacy for the State Legislature, March 9, 1832.

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• The public school has become the established church of secular society.

  Ivan Illich

  Education, School, Secular Society

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• Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.

  Ronald Reagan

  Biblical, Godly, Men

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• Our teachers at the public school level are the most underpaid for the importance of their job in America.

  Dean Smith

  Teacher, Jobs, School

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• I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it.

  Colin Powell

  School, Army, College

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• That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Education, May, Literacy

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• Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property. Let him be taught to love his family, but let him be taught at the same time that he must forsake and even forget them when the welfare of his country requires it.

  Benjamin Rush

  Country, School, Doe

  Benjamin Rush (1988). “Essays: Literary, Moral and Philosophical”, Union College

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